USS Housatonic was a screw sloop-of-war of the United States Navy, taking its name from the Housatonic River of New England.
A blockade runner is a merchant vessel used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait. It is usually light and fast, using stealth and speed rather than confronting the blockaders in order to break the blockade. Blockade runners usually transport cargo, for example bringing food or arms to a blockaded city. They have also carried mail in an attempt to communicate with the outside world.
The Anaconda Plan was a strategy outlined by the Union Army for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade of the Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by a vociferous faction of Union generals who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war and likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name.
CSS Chicora was a Confederate ironclad ram that fought in the American Civil War. It was built under contract at Charleston, South Carolina in 1862. James M. Eason built it to John L. Porter's plans, using up most of a $300,000 State appropriation for construction of marine batteries; Eason received a bonus for "skill and promptitude." Its iron shield was 4 inches (102 mm) thick, backed by 22 inches (559 mm) of oak and pine, with 2-inch (51 mm) armor at its ends. Keeled in March, it was commissioned in November, Commander John Randolph Tucker, CSN assuming command.
John Newland Maffitt was an officer in the Confederate States Navy who was nicknamed the "Prince of Privateers" due to his success as a blockade runner and commerce raider in the U.S. Civil War.
USS Mercedita was a wooden steamer that served as a gunboat in the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
CSS Sumter, converted from the 1859-built merchant steamer Habana, was the first steam cruiser of the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. She operated as a commerce raider in the Caribbean and in the Atlantic Ocean against Union merchant shipping between July and December 1861, taking eighteen prizes, but was trapped in Gibraltar by Union Navy warships. Decommissioned, she was sold in 1862 to the British office of a Confederate merchant and renamed Gibraltar, successfully running the Union blockade in 1863 and surviving the war.
The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading.
The second USS Memphis was a 7-gun screw steamer, built by William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1861, which briefly served as a Confederate blockade runner before being captured and taken into the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was destroyed by fire in 1883.
The Georgiana was a brig-rigged, iron hulled, propeller steamer belonging to the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Reputedly intended to become the "most powerful" cruiser in the Confederate fleet once her guns were mounted, she was never used in battle. On her maiden voyage from Scotland, where she was built, she encountered Union Navy ships engaged in a blockade of Charleston, South Carolina, and was heavily damaged before being scuttled by her captain. The wreck was discovered in 1965 and lies in the shallow waters of Charleston's harbor.
USS Huron was a Unadilla-class gunboat built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War for blockage duty against the ports and rivers of the Confederate States of America.
The USS Cherokee was a 606-ton screw steam gunboat in the US Navy during the American Civil War ship. The ship later served in the Chilean Navy.
USS Rosalie was a captured Confederate sloop acquired by the Union Navy from the prize court during the American Civil War.
USS Tristram Shandy was a 444-ton steamer and blockade runner captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
The first USS Wando was a steamer captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. In commission from 1864 to 1865, she was used by the United States Navy as a gunboat in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways.
USS Gertrude was the British blockade-running steamship Gertrude captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was placed in service by the Navy as a gunboat and assigned to patrol the southern coast of the United States for ships attempting to run the Union blockade of Southern ports. She was later the American merchant ship Gussie Telfair until wrecked in 1880.
USS Gladiolus was a steamship acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
The Confederate privateers were privately owned ships that were authorized by the government of the Confederate States of America to attack the shipping of the United States. Although the appeal was to profit by capturing merchant vessels and seizing their cargoes, the government was most interested in diverting the efforts of the Union Navy away from the blockade of Southern ports, and perhaps to encourage European intervention in the conflict.
During the American Civil War, blockade runners were used to get supplies through the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America that extended some 3,500 miles (5,600 km) along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines and the lower Mississippi River. The Confederacy had little industrial capability and could not produce the quantity of arms and other supplies needed to fight against the Union. To meet this need, British investors financed numerous blockade runners that were constructed in the British Isles and were used to import the guns, ordnance and other supplies, in exchange for cotton that the British textile industry needed greatly. To penetrate the blockade, these relatively lightweight shallow draft ships, mostly built in British shipyards and specially designed for speed, but not suited for transporting large quantities of cotton, had to cruise undetected, usually at night, through the Union blockade. The typical blockade runners were privately owned vessels often operating with a letter of marque issued by the Confederate government. If spotted, the blockade runners would attempt to outmaneuver or simply outrun any Union Navy warships on blockade patrol, often successfully.
Confederate States